Release Date(s)

Nintendo Switch

Platform(s)

Genre(s)

Super Mario Party is the eleventh mainline entry in the Mario Party series, returning to a more classic ruleset with the goal to collect stars against the other competitors. There are also special minigames utilizing more than one Switch.

Contents

Gameplay

Like previous Mario Party games, the game has a multitude of modes. They are all accessed by going through the hub menu with the chosen player characters. The hub is also populated by other Mario characters including the ones that weren't chosen.

The main board game mode, Mario Party, is played with up to 4 players and all the minigames utilize the functions of a single Joy-Con. There is some deeper strategy with each character getting unique kinds of dice. Like Star Rush, other Mario characters can be encountered along the board and used as additional dice in the form of an Ally.

The Partner Party mode uses similar boards but, is played in teams of two. It plays similar to the Toad Scramble mode from Star Rush though with board elements like Whomps blocking paths and such. The players move independently though combine their rolls. Each player can only get 3 allies.

The Minigame mode has a few new options. Mariothon is a new minigame mode somewhat similar to the Decathlon from earlier Mario Party games. The players compete in 5 minigames in a row to get the best score in each of them. The winner is the one with the best overall score. This is the first Mario Party mode with online play.

The next new minigame mode is River Survival where players work cooperatively to row their raft to the end of the river before the timer runs out. The players periodically have to play cooperative minigames via balloons which adds time to the timer.

The another minigame mode is the Sound Stage mode where players partake in simple rhythm games in various themes.

The other main mode is Toad's Rec Room which utilizes the Switch's Tabletop mode. This mode can use more than one Switch console. This is similar to minigames from Wii Party U

Minigames

The game has 80 different minigames. They are split into the free-for-all (including allies), 2 vs. 2, 1 vs. 3, Sound Stage and co-op.

Reception

Super Mario Party received "generally favorable" reviews from critics according to Metacritic with a current Metascore of 76/100.

The title has been praised for the return to the classic gameplay.

Sales

It was revealed during the 2018 that the game had topped 1 million units sold during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend in the US alone. It was also reported that this pushed it at the top of the list of fastest selling Mario Party game thus far.